Saturday, February 03, 2007

Whiteout freakout!

Well people, winter is officially here. And with winter driving comes the blizzard condition called whiteout. Now, any person with half a brainwould tell you to be smart and slow down, but some people like to show off just how small a brain they really have. When in the course of doing this, these moronic drivers show just how little they care about the safety of others when they don't think to slow down.

They think that if they hit the driver in front of them, it will automatically be the other driver's fault. The human brain is the most useful tool when it comes to winter driving. But some people always seem to think that technology will always come to the rescue. I tell you, all this technology, no matter how great it is, it is strickly a backup to practicing good driving habits.

How many decades did the American people survive on the road without such things as skid control or antilock brakes? I drive a 1995 Ford Taurus. It is the first car I have had antilock brakes. The first five did not. Three of those were not even front wheel drive. But I am still here today because I used my brain when I drove those cars during the winter periods.

Just goes to show it is not what you drive, it is how you drive it. I used to hear how peoples say that having a front-wheel drive or four-wheel drive vehiclemakes it possible for them to drive faster in poor weather. I wonder, does it help them see better or stop faster stop faster? If they are having trouble seeing in this weather, then they should slow down no matter what kind of vehicle they are driving. As a general rule of thumb, if your antilock brakes activate when you hit your brakes, that simply means that you are too driving fast for the existing road conditions.

P.S. If you hit the person in front of you in whiteout, YOU are the one at fault in that collision, not the slower driver. On the other hand, if you get rear ended in whiteout conditions, you are not the one at fault. That would be the other driver. Some people think that they can avoid an accident by keeping up their speed in those conditions.